Gun lobbyist says blast in home was accident
By DAWN WALTON
Saturday, September 29 Globe and Mail
CALGARY -- The head of Canada's gun lobby, on trial for a firearms
offence, told an Alberta provincial court yesterday that an accident,
not carelessness, caused a gun to go off in his apartment.
"I didn't feel I'd done anything inherently, deliberately wrong. I
had an accident," National Firearms Association president Jim Hinter
testified.
In May, 1999, Mr. Hinter was trying to fix his Czechoslovak-made
semi-automatic handgun when it went off, blowing a hole through his
wall and sending a bullet into his neighbour's apartment in southwest
Calgary.
Nobody was hurt. The neighbour, who was sitting on his couch, told the
court that dust from the bullet hole fell onto his sleeve.